The invention relates to the field of computers programs and systems, and more specifically to the field of computer-implemented method for designing and/or authoring technical illustrations, or, in other words for manipulating three-dimensional modeled objects of an assembly in a three-dimensional scene.
A number of systems and programs are offered on the market for designing and/or authoring technical illustrations, such as the one provided by Dassault Systémes under the trademark 3D VIA® Composer.
These systems, mainly dedicated to non-CAD software users, allow a user to produce, for instance, technical illustrations, maintenance or training operations, assembly instructions, marketing presentations, or interactive applications (like interactive parts catalogues . . . ).
In these systems, there exist some advanced tools to create exploded view of a 3D product, but none of them provide solutions for manipulating easily groups of parts or objects of an assembly in a three-dimensional scene.
Indeed, for making an exploded view of a part of an assembly of objects, for example for assembly instructions, during a rearrangement of objects, the mode “exploded view” is exited, and it results in a loss of information and many manipulations to reselect objects and modifying the arrangement. An exploded view represents an assembly of objects spread out according to their relationship, in particular objects positioned to show how they fit together when assembled.
Thus, it is difficult and complex to easily reorganize objects of the exploded view, notably to reorganize a group of objects simultaneously and in a linked manner with other objects of the assembly.